I really want to have a moon in the daylight sky that looks like it does from earth. By this I mean where you can still see the dark side of the disk. I've done it three ways in this image. From left to right they are; A crescent shape with crater material applied, A sphere with a photo of the moon applied and 3 blue lights, and a photo texture with a photo darkened background applied and partial transparency. Nothing seems to be working very well for me. Do I need to take the objects farther away from the camera and rely more on haze? Any Ideas on how to achieve a realistic effect would be appreciated.

Yes, try really big spheres really far away (like 3000+ units from the camera).

I find it's most effect if you drop your pants right before you drive past the individual. Er....really big spheres really far away sounds like a plan to me.

why not find a picture of the moon in the daytime the way you'd like it, then make a 2d pic object of it?

You've chosen a fairly cloudy sky, so transparency is going to be very helpful. The clouds should be in front of any moon. I vote for a postworked moon to be easiest. If postwork isn't desired, then I'd go with a 2d plane or maybe a sphere with enough transparency. I would think the fewer the clouds the easier it would be to get a good effect. Let us know what you come up with!

Here's a photo of the half moon, you mean something like this? It's would only show up on a cloudless or partially cloudy day, the clouds being in earth's atmosphere and the moon being in space....I'd do the moon on a 2d plane ...

Crank the ambience up, the moon doesn't really have specularity or any kind of shadows.

Here's one sphere with a luna photo texture. There is a single spotlight to the right with a brightness of about 10 and no falloff.

I'm beginning to have trouble dragging the thing any farther from the main scene and making it any bigger. I can't grab it from the top view anymore. There is still no sign of the shadowed face fading from the haze.

I want a crescent a little less full than zhann's photo. A couple of them actually. I think painting a couple of 2d images is the way to go.

The whole image is a going to be a lot more tropical with more ferns and vines. I can't devote any more processing power to making a 3D moon work.

You're fighting the clouds electro. To get anything close to realistic you need less clouds. Trying lowering the cloud cover and/or frequency in the skylab. Then go with a sphere and the bryce Selene texture. At the distance you're working with, it will look fine.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=186014&Start=1&Artist=Aldaron&ByArtist=Yes

Why are you using a spotlight on it? Have you tried withut one? I used the large moon far away method with this image, of course there was quite a bit of haze and a sphere placed in front for the cloud.

Oh and if you are having trouble moving it you can always just type in the position and size in the attributes.

electro.. when looking at the moon during daylight. what you see is the lighted part of the moon you can't see the darker side of it!.. so try to set the sphere texture to "additive" then only the enlighted part of it will be visible.. just like zhann's photo

Okay, Well here's the changes. I cut the cloud cover in half, lost the spotlight. While looking for the selene texture I found one in complex effects called luna and used it instead of the photo texture. It has a diffusion of 41.9 and no ambience. It's also additive. This looks a lot better. It's also rendering faster. Thanks Much:)